And it seems not even the dead are being spared the calamities of the country's two-year civil war.

Ancient mummies are rotting in a major museum because power cuts are disrupting dehumidifiers and sanctions have cut supplies of chemicals needed to preserve them.

Pictures taken this week show the mummies displayed in glass cabinets at Sanaa University, in the Yemeni capital

The university has 12 corpses that are 2,500 years old. A Yemeni student is pictured looking at a millennia-old mummy

Some of the mummies at the university are barely recognisable as human remains

The mummies need to be be kept in carefully controlled environments

With electricity intermittent at best and the country's ports under de facto blockade, experts are fighting to preserve the 12 cadavers

There is a thriving blackmarket trade in ancient artefacts, with the Islamic State known to sell priceless relics on the black market

The 12 corpses, curled into the fetal position or swaddled in baskets, are 2,500 years old and have been lying beneath glass panes within the archaeology department in the capital Sanaa's main university.

They are just some of the objects and heritage sites that are being destroyed in the fighting, which has ruined the country's infrastructure.

More than 80 sites have been damaged by airstrikes and terrorist bombings since the conflict started in March 2015.

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'The mummies have started to decay and are infected with bacteria. This is because we don't have electricity and the machines that are supposed to maintain them,' said Abdelrahman Jarallah, head of the university's antiquities department.

'We need some chemicals to sanitise the mummies every six months, and they aren't available due to the political situation.'

Funding to government bodies like the university have suffered from a struggle between Yemen's warring parties for control of the central bank.

An ancient skull which has been separated from its body is pictured in a glass cabinet

If the mummies are not perfectly preserved, the health of the people who manage them is put at risk

Another skeleton is displayed in a glass box at the university

Antiquities experts are appealing to the university and the culture ministry for funding and equipment to better fend off the microbes eating into the mummies' flesh.

But the coalition's closure of Sanaa airport and a near-blockade over a key Red Sea port - aimed at stopping weapons shipments - have cut off imports of specialty goods like the chemicals needed to ward off the microscopic menace.

The conflict has killed at least 10,000 people and unleashed a humanitarian crisis.